A Bundle of Memories

by Mojsze Frank

Translated by Renee Miller

Edited by Fay Bussgang
I want to rekindle here my memories of Brzezin, the town that is
so engraved in my heart, as if I had been born there. But first I want
to write a bit about my childhood years and how it was that I came to Brzezin.

I was born in a small town called Bialy, Piotrkow province. Of course,
we know that in a small town in Poland, when a youngster became twelve
years of age, one had to start thinking of a practical occupation for him.
What should he be? Make him a craftsman? My father, olevasholem
[may he rest in peace], said  a tailor. I said, if a tailor, then a custom
tailor, not an ordinary one. They looked for a good tailor, and they turned
me over to him for three years to learn. After three years I received a
vest as supplementary payment.

Everyone knows well what an apprentice had to put up with. He had to
carry wood and carry water; he had to do everything he was told to do.
And if with the help of God you lasted the three years, you came out half
a tailor. That meant you could work with a full craftsman, helping to sew
pants or a jacket or an overcoat. Making a piece of work alone  this you
could not do yet. You had to go and work at least three terms  three
half years  until you became a full tailor.

So I went to a tailor who did work for local landowners, that
is, the well-to-do, and I worked for him three half years. I earned twenty
rubles the first half year and thirty rubles the second half year, and
the last half year, I already earned forty rubles. This was a lot of money
at that time, and I became an expert tailor.

Now came the proper time to think about where one should go to work.
In a big city? Someone called Abraham Polewinczyk happened to live in Brzezin.
He was married to a woman from Biala. I decided to go to Brzezin. Brzezin
had many tailors. They actually produced cheap magazine [clothing factory]
goods, but they themselves liked to wear good custom-made clothing.

I did not think about it a long time. I took a ride with the first wagon
driver who was going to Skierniewice, to the railroad station. I arrived
in Koluszki [station near Brzezin] and there indeed found the Brzezin coaches.
One was Tuszynski's, and the other was Lemel Lefkowicz's. They called him
Lemel Byk [bull], and you knew right away who he was. I went over to the
wagon driver Lemel and told him to whom I was going, and he, of course,
drove me to the right family.

I introduced myself and said why I had come. I explained to him that
I was a custom tailor. He at once pointed out five tailors  the best ones,
Hazkel Szmuel Bentkewe [Bendkower?] and Syna Szmuel Bentkewe and a Gritser
tailor [from Gritse/Grojec]. And then he said to me that there were two
brothers called the Soseks [pacifiers], named Majerowicz. One was named
Berysz and the other was named Abraham, but in Brzezin, if you did not
use their nickname, nobody would know who they were. That is how I came
to work for Berysz. He lived on Optek-Gas [Pharmacy Street]. Opposite
them lived a family by the name of Fuks; they were called Malarz [house
painter]. A very fine family. They had four sons, very fine young men.
I still remember, as if it were today, that they were already daytchish
geklayt [dressed like Germans, i.e., modern]. One son was named Lajbus,
the others  Icie, Syna, and Abraham. Abraham was the youngest. They had
a sister named Ester. She was very beautiful and very charming  a true
Ester haMalke [the Queen]. If she ever looked out of the window,
and if we, the workers, happened to notice it, we immediately set aside
our work to take a look at her. She was that beautiful.

In this way I worked for Berysz a short time until I went to work for
his brother, Abraham, because with him, you worked with a larger volume.

Abraham Sosek lived on Hoyf-Gas [Courtyard Street]. The house
[apartment building] was called Mojsze Kopel's house. There were actually
lots of tailors in that house. Mordechai Winter and Joel Lajfer and the
tall Jankiel, as well as a family called Jaskolkes [swallows], all lived
there. As I said before, nobody in Brzezin knew them without their nicknames.
Another family called Hayvens [yeast/midwives] also lived there. They had
several daughters who sewed pants.

I Work for Abraham Sosek

Now I will describe my new place, where I began to work for Abraham
Sosek. He managed an entirely different tailoring shop. There were magaziners
[owners of clothing factories] in Brzezin  Mojsze Aron Szotenberg and Zygmuntowicz  who
were among the largest magaziners in Brzezin. They introduced a
better type of magazine work, almost like custom-made, except that we did
a little less work  but it had to be very good work.

We worked by the piece. The price was two rubles for a piece of work.
I worked in partnership with another worker. We both needed to make twelve
pieces of work during the week, and in addition, we made two extra pieces
of work. As you can imagine, the work hours were very  short, from six
in the morning until twelve at night, and Thursday, all night, since on
Fridays we worked only until four in the afternoon.

Once it happened that the kerosene in the lamp ran out at eleven o'clock.
My master tailor and I went around looking for kerosene. In Brzezin,
in the middle of the market was an eating place, where all the carts that
came from the small towns and were traveling to Lodz would pause and give
the horses something to eat, and they, the wagon drivers, also grabbed
a bite. Therefore, you could get kerosene there. Since we had gone to bed
earlier, we got up earlier, at four in the morning. That is how we evened
out the hours.…

The boss lived in three rooms. One large room was the workshop; in the
second room slept the workers, and in the third slept the boss and his
wife. We were five workers, and the boss was the sixth. The workshop contained
only two machines, since we sewed a lot by hand. We worked it out so that
each one sewed what he needed on the machine and after that sewed by hand.

The eagerness to work was so great that we used to sneak into the workshop
before daybreak in order to get more work done. We used to leave the hand
sewing to be done before daybreak, since making fourteen pieces of work
a week by machine was a lot.

One had to pay the master craftsman for food but not for sleeping. A
housewife who was not a very strong person would never have been able to
cook the midday meal on time. When it reached two o'clock, we used to get
hungry, like wolves. She used to put out a herring with bread; it was finished
in a minute. We decided to look for a place to eat at midday.

In Brzezin a shoemaker lived in the middle of the marketplace. His wife
was called Blume the stolerkes [carpenter's daughter?]. She used
to cook for strangers. That is how we began to eat at Blume's. At two o'clock,
on the dot, we used to go there to eat at midday. This was very good for
us, since in the meantime we got a little rest, because to walk from Mojsze
Kopel's house to the market and back was very pleasant.

The General Situation in Brzezin

Now I will write about the general situation in Brzezin. Some light
began to shine little by little. They began to organize parties  Zionist,
Poale Zionist, and the Bund. On Shabbos [Sabbath] every party member
would try to influence others to come to a talk. They would discuss every
question. Everyone wanted to convince everyone else that their party was
the most just, the best. I still remember the names of certain party leaders   the
blind Chune, Jakob Elija, and Josel Lodzer [from Lodz]. And so it went
for some time.

Then later organizers began to arrive from Lodz, and they used to call
meetings of all the parties, about what touched everyone's interests  to
improve the situation and shorten working hours.

It did not take long until one time a man arrived from Lodz called Baruch
Hoyker [hunchback]. He really was a hunchback. He was a very capable and
intelligent person. He was sent by the Lodzer worker movement, and he actually
stayed in Brzezin long enough to organize all the workers. A strike committee
with a secretary was appointed. Everyone had to pay twenty-five kopeks
[100 kopeks = 1 ruble] a week.

That is how the work went for a few weeks until they called a strike.

Now I will describe for you the strike in Brzezin.  The union group
has rebelled. That's how the bosses spoke among themselves.  We have to
see about doing something. Mordechai Winter called together a committee
of the workers and bosses, and they began to confer. We had struck for
shorter working hours. It took a few weeks, but we won the strike.

Since my boss, Abraham, loved me, and he saw how hard I had worked during
the strike, he sent my parents a letter that they should take me home  to
rest up a little  since I had worked very hard during the time of the strike.

When my parents heard this, my father, eh, immediately came
to Brzezin and took me home to the small village Bialy to rest up a bit.
When I was at home a week, a letter arrived at my parents saying that I
should not dare to return to Brzezin, because they had arrested all the
workers. Cossacks had gone through all the homes in which it was known
just that someone who had helped carry out the strike was living there.
One certainly could no longer talk about going back to Brzezin. That is
how my loyal boss, Abraham Majerowicz, saved me from a lot of tsores
[trouble].

I Travel to America

Now we started to think about what to do next. My family decided that
I should go to America. It sounds simple, going to America. You needed
to have one hundred and ten rubles for expenses. Where do you find such
a sum of money? I had saved sixty rubles, I recall, from my entire earnings.
I still needed fifty rubles. We went to borrow from family members. One
pawned a silver watch, a second pawned the makhzoyrim [holiday prayer
books] and sidurim [daily prayer books], until they put together
the money, and I, mit mazl [with good luck], left for America.

I traveled to America through Russia, since it cost less. I went to
Libava, where I boarded the ship called  Smolensk. It took three weeks,
and we arrived safely in America. When we arrived at Castle Garden [prior
to Ellis Island], they asked me how much money I had. I told them I had
two rubles. The man made a gesture with his hand that I could go. I took
my basket and began to leave. At once a man came over to me and said that
he was from a Jewish organization and I should go with him; he would take
me wherever I wanted to go.

I came through an organization that at that time was called Hakhnoses
Orkhim [hospitality to guests]. Today the organization is called HIAS
[Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society], which does wonders for newly arrived immigrants.

It was a practice that every Shabbos the landsmanshaftn
(societies of people from the same town) would look for people who had
come from their towns. The Brzeziner landsleyt [fellow townsmen]
also used to come and look for their acquaintances. The Brzeziners, if
they found anyone who had just worked in Brzezin, he was already counted
as a Brzeziner.

The first landsman I found in New York, I recall, was the Glowner [from
Glowno] melamed's [teacher's] son. He was named Luzer. He immediately
took me home and treated me to a fine meal. Later he took me to the landsleyt
and introduced me. There they provided me at once with a job to work and
a place to live.

At that time, the landsleyt lived in a certain neighborhood.
This was Eleventh Street. There you could find out about everyone. It was
a sort of birzhe [central office]. A family that we called Brashes
[??] also lived there. They had a delicatessen where one could eat something,
and it was also a meeting place where you could learn something about friends
and acquaintances.

By this time, the Brzeziners already had a society, and they stuck together.
I became a member of the society at once. We used to hold meetings twice
a month. Every meeting was a yontov [holiday] for me. It was a great
pleasure to get together because you were with your own landsleyt.
You felt at home; we believed and felt as if we had found ourselves in
Brzezin. That is why a lot of landsleyt who only worked in Brzezin
became members of the society.

Since I was already a member of the Brzeziner society, the landsleyt
made a match for me with a girl with Brzeziner parents. She was Menes Shveyger's
[dairyman's] daughter. Her name was Fajgele. We got married and have, thank
God, a lovely family. We brought up three sons  they should be healthy  all
well married.

For me, born in Bialy, Brzezin is as dear to me as my own hometown.
I actually plead with the Brzeziner landsleyt to instill in their
children an affection for Brzezin and to keep the memory of the love of
Brzezin alive, so that it will remain in memory for generations.

Three Bercholc families from Brzezin
The picture was taken on the way to the Szymonickis, to the football
[soccer] field. Herszel Mlynarzewski is also there among the families

[Pages 72–74]

A Brzeziner Jew  A Grand-Vizier in Turkey

by Israel Kahn

Translated by Renee Miller

Edited by Fay Bussgang
For many years in Brzezin a story circulated about a young man,
Gedalia Fiszel Frajnd, son of Reb Szlama Frajnd, who left home, lived a
tumultuous life, and achieved distinction in the court of the Turkish Sultan
Abdul Hamid.

Israel Kahn, the murdered Jewish journalist from Lodz, who before the
war was editor of Lodzer Togblat [Lodz Daily Newspaper], wrote a
marvelous story before World War II about Gedalia Fiszel Frajnd in a series
of articles in the Warsaw Moment [Yiddish newspaper]. We print here
a condensed version of Israel Kahn's longer description.

It happened after the Polish Insurrection of 1830. In the small Jewish
towns that had suffered so much, both from the Uprising and later also
from the Cossacks, the memory of the bloody events was still fresh. They
had had many years to give accounts of various stories and experiences
about that turbulent time. Fiszel Frajnd, the hero of our story (born 1828
in Brzezin), holding his breath, had always listened to these stories that
his father, Reb Szlama Frajnd, a respected leader in town, told with such
passion. His imagination was sparked. He lost his interest in learning.
He would go around like a person in a trance. In his young mind
serious plans began spinning and weaving, and in his fantasy he began to
imagine different scenes about wars, battles, awards, and heroics.

His father, Reb Szlama, strove to make his youngest son Fiszel into
an adult. He was hot-headed, with a lot of ability, but he did not want
to learn in kheder [Jewish elementary school]. His father did not
have any other choice, and after his bar-mitsve [ceremony on becoming
thirteen], the father turned him over to a watchmaker as an apprentice.

Since Fiszel was to be a secular person, Reb Szlama also hired a teacher
to teach him a little Polish and German.

The thirteen-year-old Frajnd really loved to learn languages, for which
he possessed many distinct abilities. It did not take long before the student
outpaced the Brzeziner professor in knowledge of language.

The young Fiszel, however, did not at all feel suited to the task of
spending entire days at the tedious craft [watchmaking], and his head was
always full of plans how to launch himself into the wide world to satisfy
his thirst for passionate experiences and adventurous journeys.

An opportunity to realize his goals arose sooner than his imagination
had pictured for him.

The young man from Brzezin who became
a Grand Vizier to the Turkish Sultan.

Hamid Pasha (FiszelFrajnd), born in Brzezin in 1828,
died in Beirut (Turkey) [now Lebanon] in 1885.

His father, who was a deputy collector of lottery tickets, played a
part in his luck. One of the tickets that happened to have been left unsold
was the grand prize winner.

Fiszel became prosperous. Not thinking about it very long, he immediately  as
soon as his father received the prize money  seized an opportune moment,
got at his father's hoard, grabbed a considerable sum of money, and took
to his heels.

He wandered around for some time through Germany, was left without a
farthing in his pocket from all his fortune, and arrived in Hungary
starving. In Budapest, Fiszel-Ferdinand (that is what he was called then)
obtained work in a wine business. There his luck began to turn.

His liveliness, nimbleness, and very careful attention to even the smallest
detail that came to him to take care of attracted the attention of one
of the frequent visitors to the wine business. This was a Hungarian high
officer, an old cavalry man. He became interested in the solitary young
man, in whom he recognized uncommon abilities. He took the  little Polish
Jew home, made him an orderly, and at the same time set about to educate
him in earnest.

The military man came to love his Ferdinand like his child. Seeing that
he could not accomplish anything more for him, he decided to send him with
warmest recommendations to his friend, the famous Hungarian folk hero,
Kossuth [Lajos Kossuth, the "Father of Hungarian Democracy].

At that time, Hungary was on the eve of the Magyar Revolution of 1848.

The Brzeziner youth threw himself into the fight for freedom at the
side of Kossuth himself.

The young fighter quickly advanced to the level of officer and received
a long list of distinctions.

But Kossuth's fight for the freedom of his people was not crowned with
success. Austria defeated the Hungarian Revolution, and vicious persecutions
of Hungarian Jews also began because of their participation in the insurrection.

Fiszel-Ferdinand left for Turkey at that point, and there he really
had a marvelous career that sounds like a fantastic story from A Thousand
and One Nights.

At that time, Turkey had to contend with partisan warfare. In the Sultan's
empire, the insurrections multiplied among the dissatisfied portions of
the population. Fiszel-Ferdinand  put on the fez (in later years that
is how he would express his conversion and his adoption of the Mohammedan
belief) and joined the Turkish Army.

He distinguished himself greatly in the fight against the insurrectionists,
and his military career advanced with fantastic speed.

When the year 1853 arrived the Crimean War broke out between Turkey
and Russia. Fiszel-Ferdinand strove to get into the war and demonstrate
his heroism. However, enemies denounced him as a former Russian citizen.
They concocted the claim that he was a Russian spy and that he had received
a  keg of gold from the Czar. The result was that he was exiled to the
Isle of Rhodes for the entire war period.

During that difficult time Fiszel-Ferdinand got a completely unexpected
defender  the great Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz.

When in 1853 Mickiewicz came to Constantinople to create a Polish legion
in Turkey and heard the story about Fiszel-Ferdinand from Brzezin, he became
deeply interested in the fate of his unlucky fellow countryman.

Mickiewicz, by persuading the Sultan, assured that a new investigation
would be conducted concerning Fiszel-Ferdinand. The investigation actually
determined that the guilty verdict was false, and the Brzeziner hero was
brought back from Rhodes to Constantinople, where the Sultan himself later
protected him.

Turkey rapidly got into a second war  with Montenegro. Fiszel Frajnd,
or, as he now called himself by his Mohammedan name, Makhmed-Hamid, experienced
a great deal of combat in the war. In one of the battles he had a difficult
struggle with the commander of his division, a Turkish general. Fiszel-Ferdinand
had a suspicion that the general wanted to surrender to the enemy, so at
a certain moment  so the story goes  he cut off the head of the general.
The story reached the Sultan, who summoned Fiszel-Ferdinand (Makhmed-Hamid)
to him.

The hero from Brzezin gave his account to the Sultan, and as a result,
the Sultan was very pleased with Makhmed-Hamid's action and immediately,
on the spot, raised him to the rank of general, also giving him the title
 Pasha.

That is how the youth from Brzezin, Reb Szlama Frajnd's youngest son,
came to be a Turkish Pasha.

In the meantime, the war became complicated. The attempt at peace negotiations
with Montenegro and Serbia  which was also in the battle  fell through.
And it came about that Russia again declared war against Turkey in 1877.
England was on the side of Turkey.

Fiszel-Ferdinand Frajnd  now already Hamid-Pasha  took part in the new
war as a commanding general, and thanks to his heroism, achieved the title
of Field Marshall. He received many high military awards, among them, also,
one from the English Queen Victoria.

During this Turkish-Russian War, a serious situation arose in Syria,
which was a Turkish province at that time. The Sultan needed an efficient,
faithful Governor-General for Syria and selected Hamid-Pasha for the post.

While in Syria the Jewish heart awoke in the Brzeziner hero who had
so greatly achieved distinction, and he did many favors for Jews there.
In general, he had great success in that post, and he also came to be beloved
by the entire population.

After the end of the war, in 1878, the new Sultan, Abdul-Hamid, appointed
Fiszel-Ferdinand-Hamid-Pasha as his closest counselor with the title of
Grand Vizier.

This was the first and only time that a Jew  even a former Jew  was
elevated to such a high office in the Turkish Empire.

The story continues that upon rising to the highest level of power,
influence, and honor, Hamid-Pasha, the Grand Vizier, completely befriended
his fellow Jews in Turkey. He succeeded in getting a government salary
for the Khokhem-Bashi (Chief Rabbi) Mojsze Levi in Constantinople.
Thanks to Hamid-Pasha the Sultan introduced the custom of sending to the
khokhem-bashi before every Passover eight thousand francs so that
he could distribute alms for Passover needs to the poor Jews in Constantinople.

When a great fire destroyed the Jewish quarter of Constantinople, Hamid-Pasha
succeeded in getting the Sultan to send aid for those who suffered the
great loss. At that time, thanks to the Brzeziner Jew, a number of Turkish
Jews also received high government posts.

Gedalia Fiszel Frajnd  that is how he was listed in the registration
book of birth certificates in Brzezin Town Hall  achieved such grandeur
but also did not forget his family in the old country.

The Pasha sent money to be divided among his relatives in Brzezin  separately,
however, for his sister, the wife of Brzeziner resident Reb Izrael Kriger.
She was later supported by him during her entire life.

Then Reb Izrael Kriger, who had until that time drawn his livelihood
from a small haberdashery and dry-goods business, decided to make a trip
to Constantinople to visit his brother-in-law and see what had truly happened
to him. He took off his long garments, dressed himself in the German manner
[modern dress], and went on his way.

This difficult journey took place under very trying conditions, but
Kriger absolutely did not regret his pains. Aside from the many gifts and
curious greetings he brought with him from Constantinople, he returned
with the title   Pan [Sir]!

Sir Izrael Kriger!

The Grand Vizier did not forget to also send with Kriger a gift for
the then Brzeziner rov [town rabbi], Harovgaon [rabbi and
eminent scholar] Reb Syna Sapir (author of SeyferOlas Khodesh
[book of sermons about the new moon])  a beautiful, carved little tobacco
box.

Upon parting the Pasha asked his brother-in-law to come and visit him
again very soon, this time together with his sister (Kriger's wife). That
also came to pass.

The old Brzeziner Town Hall in Jukel Brzezinski's
house [building]

Kriger's second visit to Turkey was very poignant and solemn  this time
with his wife and also with their son-in-law, Sorkin.

They spoke of this trip among the family in Brzezin for many years and
of the way Fiszel-Ferdinand-Hamid-Pasha had received his own in his palace.

Fiszel-Ferdinand-Hamid-Pasha, toward the end of his extraordinarily
tumultuous life, allegedly was even preparing to come for a visit to his
people in Brzezin. However, he became seriously ill with malaria. His relatives
in Brzezin stopped getting letters from him and became very anxious. Finally,
Kriger sent off an inquiry to the Russian ambassador in Constantinople.

The ambassador answered with a sad letter. In the letter, written to
 Herr Pan Kriger in Brzezin, Piotrkower Gubernia, the First Secretary
of the Consul reported the news that Hamid-Pasha had died on 15/27[Julian/Gregorian calendar]August 1885, and on the order
of the Sultan, a mausoleum would be erected over his grave. Hamid-Pasha
died in Beirut, where shortly before his death he had once again taken
over the office of Governor-General for Syria.

That is how the wonderful story is told about the Brzeziner Jewish young
man who ran away from home and became a Grand Vizier under the Turkish
Sultan.

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